


A wolf in the family.

by the_other_lutece_sister



Series: A Wolf in the Family [1]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Ankh-Morpork, F/F, OB, Sestras, propunk - Freeform, sestre - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-07-23 22:36:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7482582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_other_lutece_sister/pseuds/the_other_lutece_sister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Propunk in Ankh-Morpork! Sestras in the Watch!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the lovely anon who asked me if I was planning any Discworld fics. I wasn't but here we are anyway! Maybe you didn't even mean OB related fics but that's what you're getting, so I hope you enjoy it :P

The Watch Commander stood before the desk of the Patrician, back straight, boots planted firmly, staring straight ahead. The Patrician sat at the desk, writing a letter, and ignoring the Commander.

 

Sarah inwardly seethed as she stood and waited. The woman just bloody sat there, pen scratching away at the parchment, like she  _ hadn’t  _ sent for the Watch half an hour ago, like she  _ hadn’t _ explicitly said it was urgent.

She’d hated the Patrician on first sight. She hated her on  _ principle _ . The Duncans were one of Ankh-Morpork’s oldest and wealthiest families. Rachel Duncan had been brought up with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth. (Although, knowing Rachel Duncan, she’d probably spat it out and demanded a spoon made of platinum and diamond as soon as she could talk.)

It wasn’t just the Patricians nobby background that made the Commander loathe her - she’d also been trained at the Assassins Guild. Most of the young ladies and gentlemen of what passed as ‘high society’ on the Discworld studied at the Guild. They were the only ones who could afford the fees, for a start. 

The uneasy knowledge that Duncan could kill her ten different ways right now without even trying made Sarah’s skin tight and her fists itch. But she stood, and waited, and concentrated on staring at the wall.

Finally, the pen stopped moving and was laid on the desk. The Patrician carefully blotted the wet ink, folded the paper, then painstakingly applied her seal. The letter joined a short pile on the side of the desk. 

She glanced up at Sarah as if just realising she was there, and gave a lightning-fast smile.

 

“Ah, Commander Manning. What can I do for you?” She saw the flash of anger in the Commander's eyes and she almost smiled again.

 

“You sent for me, Ma’am.” Sarah answered in a civil tone. “You said it was an emergency.”

 

Rachel gave her a blank look, and tapped a finger on her lips, painted in her usual blood red. 

“Oh, yes.” she said. “Of course. Chickens.”

 

“Chickens, ma’am?” Sarah said blandly. Inwardly she thought ‘oh no not again’.

 

“Yes, Commander. Chickens. Specifically, two chickens belonging to a Mr Bottler of Shamlegger Street. He claims they were stolen by a - what was it - a giant blonde wolf.”

 

The Commander winced slightly. The Patrician noted this.

“We can’t have wolves roaming the city, stealing innocent citizens chickens, can we, Commander?”

Sarah scoffed inwardly at the word ‘innocent’. Innocence in Ankh-Morpork was verging on an unknown concept. But she kept her voice emotionless.

“No, ma’am.”

 

“So, you’re going to do something about this, aren’t you, Commander?”

 

Sarah kept staring straight ahead. 

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll get my best men right on the case, ma’am.”

 

The Patrician tilted her head slightly to the left.

“Perhaps your...sister can handle this one, Commander.”

 

Sarah’s eyes shot down to the Patricians face. Her perfectly unreadable face.

 

“Yes, ma’am.” Her voice was possibly even more wooden now.

Duncan stared at her a moment too long, then smiled brightly

“Well, don’t let me keep you, Commander. Ankh-Morpork is _ full _ of stolen chickens, and worse, I am sure.”

 

Sarah sighed. “Yes, ma’am.” She turned to go. The Patrician had already started writing another letter, the noise of the quill nib managing to sound imperiously dismissive.

 

The Commander shut the door softly behind her, swore under her breath, strode a few steps, then slammed her fist against the wall. There was already a series of dents from the Commanders previous visits to the palace.

The Patrician heard the  **thump** from inside her office, and paused in her writing. She smiled as she ran the swan feather quill through her fingers and thought about all that  _ rage  _ that Commander Manning kept pent up inside. The sister - now, there was a sore spot. All she had to do was keep poking at it, and one day, the dam would break, the Commander would be gone and the real Sarah Manning would be there, fists raised and snarling.

 

And what a sight that would be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Commander talks to the chicken thief!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, looks like this is gonna be a Thing, so I made it a separate series. Yay!

Sarah strode back to the Watchhouse, fists clenched, her sword swinging at her side. She could feel the cobblestones under the thin soles of her cheap boots and just managed to avoid a large dirty puddle. The street traffic of Ankh-Morpork was it’s usual vibrant, loud, and above all  _ smelly  _ self. The Commander moved through it like a small thundercloud. Beggars, thieves, and merchants took one look at her face and suddenly found they were needed elsewhere, very far from here.

She stomped through the watchhouse door and slammed it shut behind her. Everyone turned to stare - and as quickly looked back down at whatever they were doing. Nobby Nobbs decided it was a good time to duck out for a roll-up and Sgt Colon followed him, for the good of his health. It was clear the Commander was in a Mood. The kind of Mood that got people shouted at for stirring a cup of tea too loudly. 

Sarah took off her helmet and ran a hand through her dark mane, sighing. Bloody chickens! They’d talked about this before. No taking animals within city limits! If she wants to hunt, she can bloody well go outside the walls and hunt her way through the damn cabbage fields!

She turned to the dwarf whose misfortune it was to be on front desk duty. 

“Have you seen Sgt Manning?” she snapped.

“Not...not recently, sir.” the dwarf said nervously, as the Commander placed her hands on the desk and leaned forward, looming over him.

“When was the  _ last _ time you saw her, then? Today? Last week?”

The dwarf sweated into his beard. “This morning, sir! She went out to look for Dibbler, sir!”

Sarah frowned. “Why the hell would anyone  _ want _ to find Dibbler?” Unless she was arresting him for advertising what he sold in his tray as ‘food’...

The dwarf hesitated, then said, “I think she wanted a sausage inna bun, sir?”

Dibblers sausages in a bun were disc famous. Or maybe infamous was the right word. Yes, people would travel from the edges of the disc to see Dibblers sausages and then very carefully  NOT buy and eat one. And then Dibbler would sell them a postcard and a tiny copy of an Ankh-Morpork landmark that he imported from the mountains. Which mountains, he never said but Sarah suspected they were down one of the back alleys in the Shades.

She rolled her eyes. Of course, her sister was the only person in Ankh-Morpork, and possibly the entire disc who actually  _ liked and would willingly eat  _ one of Dibblers sausages. But that meant she’d be back at the Watchhouse soon, if only to be sick.

“Well, if she makes it back here, send her up to the office.”

“Yessir!” said the dwarf, relief tangible in his voice. 

 

An hour passed, the Commander did paperwork and tried really, really hard not to think about bourbon. Days gone past, there’d be a bottle in the bottom drawer, just sitting there. And before she knew it, it’d be empty and she’d be peeling her head off the desk in the mornings. But she couldn’t let that happen anymore. Now she had to look out for her sister.

 

There was a tentative knock on the door. 

“Come in.” called Sarah. 

The door opened and a mane of blonde hair appeared around the edge of it. The helmet barely fitted over the top, and the face underneath was a mirror image of her own. She sidled into the room as if expecting to be kicked if she was noticed and looked at Sarah solemnly.

 

Sarah sighed. “Sit down, please, Helena.” She waved vaguely at the chair opposite hers. The other woman sat, her hands tracing the edges of the seat, fiddling with the loose threads that dangled from the cushion.

“Chickens, Helena? You went and stole some poor mans bloody chickens from a few blocks away! You know you’re not supposed to hunt in the city! We’ve talked about this before!” Her voice got louder, and her sister cringed. She stopped herself, and took a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m sorry. But the bloody Patrician called me in about it this time and...well, you know how she gets.”

Helena nodded. “Sardonic,” she said. “Snooty.”

Sarah gave a snort. “Yeah. Both of those, in spades.”

“But she is very - pretty.” added Helena, eyeing Sarah with a knowing look. 

“Pfft! Of course she’s pretty! She’s too rich to be ugly!” Sarah blustered uncomfortably. Pretty wasn’t even the word. Duncan was like a work of art, shiny and sculptured and delicately coloured, with the effortless sheen that pots of gold provided. She shook away the image of the Patrician, the oddly  _ attractive _ image.

“Just - look, sis, if you want to hunt, go outside the city, alright? Everyone knows we have a werewolf in the Watch, and I don’t want to start being charged for random chickens. We have enough problems!”

Helena nodded slowly. “Alright, sestra, I will hunt in the cabbages. Even though the smell is…” she screwed her face up, and then held her nose. 

Sarah nodded in agreement. “Very...cabbagey.” she offered, and Helena barked in laughter.

 

It was odd, having a werewolf for a twin sister. She hadn’t always been a werewolf, of course. She’d ran off to Überwald at one point, got bit, ran with a pack for a while, then came back to Ankh-Morpork. Missed her sister too much, she’d said. Sarah thought there was more to the story than that. Something had happened back in the mountains. One day Helena would tell her about it, and Sarah didn’t want to push it. Reconnecting after so long was hard enough. She opened the bottom drawer and took out the box that was inside. Taking the lid off, she held it out to Helena.

 

“Meat pie?” she asked, and watched her sisters face light up. “And proper bloody pies too, not Dibblers crap,” she added. She paused. “Did you really eat one of his sausages inna bun?”

Helena gave a muffled  _ yes  _ around a mouthful of pie crust. Sarah shook her head in wonder.

“Werewolves must have guts of bloody iron,” she muttered. Helena nodded happily, her cheeks bulging. 

The Commander of the Watch looked at her sister and smiled. It was good to have her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooo, mystery! ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kids running wild in Ankh-Morpork!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh, I just wanted to write something with the twins as kids. Because fun!

Sarah ran down the alleyway, her feet were bare and almost black with dirt. The fleeing figure in front of her looked back in terror, eyes huge as he saw the girl gaining on him. Her long dark hair flew out behind her and she grinned as her skinny little legs pumped. Ahead at the end of the alley, another small, skinny figure stepped into view. This one had blonde hair but an identical grin on an identical face. The boys pace faltered as he saw her, clearly torn between which girl he feared more.

The blonde girl raised a slingshot and took something wrapped in a paper bag from one of her many pockets in the old green jacket she wore. She loaded the slingshot with the contents and aimed at the kid, who had slowed down as much as he could without getting caught by Sarah, who had now stopped running and sauntered down the alleyway, confident in the knowledge that her prey had been cornered.

Also, she didn’t want to get sprayed with the fallout from -

Helena released the slingshot and the boy was hit square in the face with a small mass of dog poop. She pointed at the boy and started to chant...

“Scuggins, Scuggins, smells like shit! Scuggins, Scuggins, chuck him the pit!”

Sarah had come up behind Scuggins, (as was the unfortunate boys name), and shoved him in the back.

“Hey. Hey! If we see your face down on Cockbill St again, Scuggins, you’ll be _eating_ it. And Helena keeps all _kinds_ of things in her pockets that shouldn’t be et.”

 

The blonde girl nodded proudly at this statement. None of the other street urchins had ever seen her without that coat. It was large and green and smelly and dirty, with seemingly dozens of pockets in various places. And Helena kept it well stocked, with food scraps and handfuls of stolen lollies, and bits of fur, and feathers, and interesting buttons, and smushed flowers, and aromatic herbs that the other kids insisted were poisonous, and wads of paper, some pencil stubs, various coins from all over the Disc, smooth stones, rough stones, pointy stones, shiny stones, her prized slingshot, spare slingshot elastic, spare slingshot sticks, various other sticks not for slingshot use, at least two dozen different lengths of string, candle ends, a treasured box of matches, a range of marbles, scraps of lace, and satin ribbons, several small and incredibly sharp knives, and a little carved wooden charm that resembled a lobster that she called Pupok.

 

Scuggins face still had a patina of terror underneath the layer of dog poop, and he nodded furiously at Sarah as she poked him and hissed, “If you or any of your ratty little mates ever lay a finger on Felix again, Helena’ll be shooting more than shite at you, got it?”

Helena snapped the slingshot elastic, and the boy jumped a foot into the air, then landed running, aiming to put as much distance between him and the twins as possible...even if that meant running straight into the Ankh river.

 

This being the Ankh, it was less running _into_ the water than running along the furry green...whatever...that was growing on _top_ of the water. Scuggins got a fair way out before he started sinking. The two girls watched with mild interest but got bored and wandered off when the river level got up past his knees.

Helena skipped along the gutter, her feet also bare and filthy. It was summer, and the twins were eight years old.

Sarah looked up at the sound of clocks striking noon. Noon took a while to actually arrive in Ankh-Morpork, as the various Guilds all had clocks that ran at slightly different speeds, going off from all corners of the city, resulting in a cacophony of noise until the final toll of Old Tom. The Unseen University’s bell was formed out of octiron (that most magical of metals), and had no clapper, so rang out a deep velvety absence of sound that silenced everything.

“Bloody hell,” she snapped, “we’re late. Come on!” She grabbed Helenas hand and they started running back towards Cockbill St, and the schoolroom.

It wasn’t an official school, as such, not like the various Guilds had. Just a spare room set up with a chalkboard and a bunch of mismatched chairs at small desks. But Mrs S was a good teacher, in that she kept the children out of the worst of the summer heat and winter cold, told them violent and gore-filled stories that were perfectly acceptable for children as they came under ‘history’, and had cake for them all every Friday. (She also kept a loaded crossbow in the top drawer of her desk. Helena had sniffed it out somehow and this had led to locks, and lectures on respect for other people’s property...if said property was Mrs S’s.)

Felix was a young boy that lived with her, and she had taken in Sarah and Helena as well after she’d found them sleeping in her woodbox. The three kids shared a bedroom, with the twins taking turns telling the younger boy scary ghost stories, which usually led to him crawling into their bed in the wee hours, weeping about the monster under his bed. Helena would always check and was inevitably disappointed in the stubborn absence of monsters.

The girls reached the house and they looked at each other like a mirror, Sarah attempting to smooth down Helena's hair, Helena pulling out a huge handkerchief from a pocket and rubbing at Sarah's face in a futile attempt to clean the dirt off. Then they sidled into the classroom and sat down, studiously avoiding the steely blue gaze of Mrs S.

 

Felix half turned and widened his eyes at Sarah. She nodded in return, baring her teeth in a small grin of vengeance enacted. Helena mimed shooting her slingshot, then did quite an impressive impersonation of someone with dog shit all over their face. Felix stifled a laugh, and they all turned their attention to the chalkboard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helena's coat is magical and crosses all dimensional boundries!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel Duncan goes to school.

The Assassins Guild was a busy place today - it was the start of the school year and families were milling around the entrance hall, and in the front courtyard, doing last minute checks of whether little Thomas had enough underwear and socks, how little Edward managed to smuggle his puppy into his luggage, and where had little Susan found that crossbow? Oh, her grandmother had slipped it into her bag, well alright then.

Senior members of staff moved among the chaos in black robes and with stern faces, marking names off, shaking parents hands, shouting at the porters.

Among the chaos, a small blonde girl sat calmly on top of her luggage, her eyes taking in everything and filing it away for later examination. She wore a simple black dress, the kind of simple that costs a great deal of money. A black hat, vaguely bonnet-shaped and adorned with starling feathers and a black net veil, sat on the case beside her. She was in the process of unbuttoning her black gloves, exposing her slender and pale wrists, when a boy who looked to be slightly older sauntered over and stood in front of her, looking her up and down and examining the make of her luggage.

Seemingly satisfied, he said “I’m Nathanel Selachii- “, leaving a pause for her to be impressed in, and seeming slightly disconcerted when there no indication that she was. He had already mastered the art of talking down his nose and did so now.

“And _who_ might _you_ be?” he asked.

The girl looked at him with a bored expression.

“Rachel Duncan.” Her voice was emotionless, yet somehow suggested the speaker was incredulous that this was not already common knowledge.

Nathanels eyes widened briefly and he took an involuntary step backwards.

The Duncans were an old, old family, and rivaled his own in wealth and breeding. His parents were friends of theirs: by high society standards, this meant they despised each other but did so over sherry and polite dinner conversation. He had been aware that there was a daughter but had never laid eyes on her before now. Rumour had it she had been sent to stay with relatives in Überwald after a rather nasty house fire ruined half of the Duncans country property last spring. Why her parents didn’t just bring her back to Ankh-Morpork with them was a subject Nathanel’s parents had discussed over dinner in that particular guarded way of adults trying to circumvent their children's natural curiosity.

It had certainly been heavily implied that the child had started the fire. Whether deliberately, for fun or attempted parenticide (or both), or accidently (his father had scoffed at that suggestion).

 

What was certain that her parents were more comfortable with Rachel several thousand miles away. But now she was of an age to attend school, the Assassins Guild was one of the finest educational institutions on the Disc, and the Duncans were certainly not going to allow their only daughter to waste her sanguinary talents in the dark and distant mountains. Besides, the Guild was a boarding school, so they had the advantage of knowing where she was while not actually having to interact with her. And she could learn how to mingle with children of other high society families, and possibly even make a friend or two.

Rachel thought this was highly unlikely.

 

Nathanel recovered himself, and gave Rachel a shallow bow, mumbling something about a pleasure to meet her. Her eyebrow twitched and she looked almost as if she were enjoying his now-apparent nervousness.

“I can show you to the dorms,” he offered. “Good to get in early, get a good bunk…”

Rachel exhaled through her nose, amused.

“Oh, no. I won’t be sleeping in the dormitory. I requested a private room.” She smiled fleetingly. “Thank you anyway.” Her gaze drifted back over the crowds, head tilted to the side.

The boy gaped at her. A private room? No first year had _ever_ been allowed a private room before. Even the senior students had to plead their case. He looked down at the smooth blonde head, determined to somehow get her on side. He cast around for something to converse about, but all he could think about was his mother murmuring “They barely got out, you know. The entire east wing was completely destroyed.”

But he couldn’t very well _ask_ her if she had intended to kill her own parents. For one thing, he suspected she would probably tell him in that emotionless voice, and he wouldn’t know how to react. _Better luck next time, old chap?_

Rachel’s eyes moved over the other students - boring - and onto the huge iron gates that opened out onto the square. More people milling about in the great street theatre that was Ankh-Morpork. Her attention was caught by two girls who ran past, arms flailing and legs pumping. The blonde one was screaming with laughter, waving a slingshot, while the dark-haired one was shouting back over her shoulder and making various hand gestures that Rachel had never seen before, but were quite clearly impolite.

If her face hadn’t been so perfectly composed, so coldly inscrutable, it may have expressed a mixture of mild interest and vague envy at the chaotic freedom these filthy urchins represented.

She sniffed and looked away, focusing her gaze on the massive front doors of the Guild, fingers tapping on her luggage as she waited. She was six years old, and her future lay ahead of her like a slab of stone, milestones chiseled into it at intervals. School. Graduation (Very Most High Distinction or nothing). Introduction to Society. Marriage. Children. But Rachel had her own Plans. Ankh-Morpork was a pit of chaos and corruption. It needed to be controlled and tamed and guided.

Rachel Duncan thought about the one time she had been inside the Patrician's Palace, and seen the old golden throne. She'd snuck off to touch it, wanting to feel the cold heaviness of the precious metal, and had been bitterly disappointed to find the gold scraped off and the throne was wood underneath. But it had taught her something about _appearances_ and _deception,_ the folly of expectations and the importance of symbols.

She smoothed her dress down and smiled politely as one of the teachers finally noticed her and headed her over, with a strange kind of hurried reluctance.

"Rachel Duncan, yes?" the teacher ticked off her name on the scroll and tapped his pen nervously. "Mantis House. Er. The porter will take up your luggage to the.." -confused checking of his notes - "oh, to _your_ room. Miss Duncan. Welcome to the Guild." Nodding in what he hoped was a dignified manner, but putting Rachel in mind of nothing more than one of those bobbly-headed dogs she'd seen in the maidservants rooms, he wandered off to the next family.

Rachel picked up her gloves and hat, and waited patiently to be shown her room.

She was good at waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I have been working on Beyond the Sea, but then my brain said 'no, you have to write baby Rachel at the Assassins Guild! Do it now!' and I said 'shut up brain' and it said' no you shut up' and here we are.

**Author's Note:**

> This was fun, so leave a comment if you liked it and maybe I'll write some more?


End file.
